Re: [gardeners] Lemon Trees/Meyer
olin (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Sun, 13 Oct 2002 16:54:19 -0700
The old Meyer lemons I have seen are kind of round and look like they might
be a cross between an orange and a lemon. I understand CA allows only the
Improved Meyer but AZ still prohibits both.
Our lemon tree is Lisbon, a vicious, thorny, prolific tree that needs to be
cut back every few years. We get enough lemons from it for us, for several
families of snowbird relatives, and still have quite a bit left over to haul
to the food bank.
People here tend to use he terms Ponderosa and Rough Lemon interchangeably
but there is a difference. The fruit looks similar - large, seedy and
bumpy.. But the Ponderosa is a smaller, thorny tree and is not a true
lemon. Rough lemon is a larger lemon-sized tree and was used as a
rootstock, primarily in the Zone 10 region around Yuma. It was pretty
common 35 years ago when suckers were allowed to grow below the bud union
but it is now pretty rare.
----- Original Message ----- From: "George Shirley" <gshirl@bellsouth.net>
> Yeah, the CTV was the reason the Meyer Lemon was completely changed. As
> I said earlier the original ones were round and orange in color, looked
> nothing like a lemon at all but were very sour. I was totally amazed a
> couple of years ago when people started telling me I was crazy, the
> Meyer was yellow, looked like a lemon, etc. Looked them up and read the
> story as to why the Meyer was changed so completely. Reckon Arizona
> hasn't gotten around to certifying the "new" Meyer as yet but Florida
> and some other citrus states allow them no as I understand.
>
> I grow the Ponderosa lemon myself, much harder here in SW Louisiana and
> only gets bitten back by frost about every 5 to 6 years, particularly if
> I forget to cover it. Have harvested lemons up to 3 lbs from the thing
> and 2 lbs is common. It's not very attractive, grows sort of sprangly
> but sure is productive.
> Thanks for the cites, very informative.